(identity 'myron)

Tue, 14 Oct 2003

Tokyo [/personal]

Back from a short weekend trip to Tokyo. Mixed feelings about the place. Although realistically, it's pretty challenging to warm up to a city that's so large and impersonal in the space of 2.5 days.

I took only a handful of pictures, and I'm too lazy to put them up, so there'll be no fanfare and no celebration about the whole thing quite yet.

Oddly enough, in a part of Tokyo, there's a replica of the Statue of Liberty. I say odd, since what it means to Americans probably doesn't really carry over for the Japanese given the difference in history. Still, it's there and it looks pretty, so hurrah. IMO, I like the statues of Justice more:

There might not be some huge version of it like Liberty, but it more than makes up for that in number, considering some form of it sits outside almost every courthouse in the western world.

Personally, I've always liked it for its strong symbolism. There are few other images I can think of that give the same sense of equality and impartiality. Were it not such a heroic ideal to strive for, it would almost be funny that Justice is meant to be blind to the influence of the world, yet simultaneously administered by humans themselves. *shrug*

// posted at 00:34. permalink   comments